Blueprints tell what states will do to roll out health information exchange

States that received funding through the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology’s Health Information Exchange Cooperative Agreement Program are responsible for submitting blueprints to the federal government detailing their plans for creating HIEs and helping providers adopt health IT. In a panel during a meeting of the Health IT Standards Committee’s implementation workgroup, two state agencies explained their plans.

Vermont is working on a plan to have all its doctors connected to an HIE database. By 2015, the HIE will be touching all agencies and institutions that provide care, according to Hunt Blair, deputy director of health care reform in the state’s Office of Vermont Health Access.

The state of Alabama has been collaborating with one of its largest insurance providers — Blue Cross and Blue Shield — to create one application that providers can install to participate in information exchange. Health IT programs should be transparent and understandable for providers, said Kim Davis-Allen, director of the transformations initiatives division of Alabama Medicaid. “It’s our responsibility to help providers translate the why into practice,” she told the workgroup.